"Marketers should be careful not to overpromise"

Kedar Apte, vice president marketing at Castrol - India and South Asia on marketing to the universe of truckers, bikers and car-drivers as well as the lessons learnt at Hindustan UnileverAmit Bapna | ETBrandEquity | September 26, 2018, 07:39 IST

From spending over 10 years working on the sexy soaps category (among other portfolios) at the country’s largest FMCG company (HUL) to crafting strategies of a category as nonsexy as oils and lubricants (Castrol), Apte has a rather varied work-experience on his resume. In an exclusive chat with Brand Equity, he shares his playbook

What should the ideal tenure of a CMO be? And why?

A typical time horizon is 3-5 years and a CMO tenure should certainly be at least 3-4 to devise strategy and see it through.

What is the most important thing you’ve learnt from your competitors?

There is merit in consistency and the soul of the brand should not be compromised. When I worked at HUL on soaps, our brand positioning would change too frequently (for Lux, Rexona etc). Every new brand director would want to demonstrate a bias for action and leave his / her legacy. One of our local competitors (Santoor) had a very powerful proposition and stayed with it for more than a decade. While the creative executions changed, the soul of the brand did not. It is not a surprise to me that the brand has done extremely well, gaining share consistently and becoming a major national player.

What’s your greatest strength and weakness as a marketer

I consider my job as that of creating demand and not purely driving equity. I use a filter of what marketing plans do to drive demand for the brand and what business they generate. I always ask the “What job is this activity doing and how do we know it is driving business?” One development objective for myself is to get a better understanding of millennial consumers and how they differ in values, insights and consumption patterns.

What’s the hardest decision you’ve made as CMO?

Letting go of some assets that have been successful in the past, for example the ICC Cricket World Cup after a 5-year long partnership. Some properties had to make way for those with better ROI, such as kabaddi and digital content partnerships.

What’s been your proudest moment so far?

Imitation is the best form of flattery and during my career, more than once, I found competition paying us rich compliments by copying what we had done. While it is annoying, it also made me very proud.

The most bizarre customer experiences/requests you or your teams have had to deal with?

No customer request is bizarre. It is just that all customers are different and so are their motivations. One of the most satisfying experiences has been from participants of ‘Castrol Super Mechanic’ – a program that focuses on upskilling of mechanics. This program gave them a platform to demonstrate skills. The winners were recognized as India’s best mechanics and became heroes within their community. The winners told us how this platform has helped them become more proficient, attract more customers and grow their business. This was the best and most satisfying customer feedback ever.

Speaking of funny experiences, I once had a young lady asking me why she did not look like Aishwarya or Priyanka after using a certain soap brand. I believe this actually is a hard question and marketers should be careful not to overpromise.

What’s the best question about your company and the market asked of you in the last 30 days by (a) a member of the press, (b) an investor and (c) a customer? (VISUAL - ‘Castrol Truck Asana’ IMAGES)

In the last few months, I have been privileged enough to work on a campaign that can truly transform lives of our consumers – truckers. Recognizing unique posture related health issues, we designed customized yoga moves called ‘Castrol Truck Asana’ that can be a part of the truckers’ daily lives and help them improve physical and mental health.

What’s the one thing you have learnt from your stint at HUL that you can use in this job?

Addressing a core rather than a surface issue. If you don’t address the core, another issue crops up and the cycle repeats. In HUL, I leant to arrive at a surface issue by asking ‘Why?’ continuously and then treating the cause rather than the symptom.

Who do you relate to the most?

From the non-fiction genre, my all-time favourite is Andre Agassi’s biography – ‘The Open’. I remember a very important lesson: A coach told Agassi not to play every ball like his life depends on it. A point at 40-0 when you are leading 5 games to 2, you can just focus on returning the ball and putting it back in court rather than going for a winner. You need to conserve your energy for a more critical point like a break point. I found this immensely powerful and learnt when to put the ball back and when to go for a winner. Sometimes I find myself trying to go for a winner and then have to remind myself that sometimes it is fine to just keep the ball in play.